I'm seeking input from those of you who actually have faced this situation to see if anyone has had any success in turning it around.
I have a 15 yo, who has always been an excellent student in the past. This year, she is bombing math and science, and this is a kid who always wanted to go into the medical field. She says its too hard and she can't do it and if she spends her life at a low paying, menial job it's no big deal. I've seen no evidence of her putting in much effort this year at all. Her teachers have offered no insight. She goes to a big school and the guidance counselors are so busy dealing with the kids with horrible problems that this sort of thing gets no attention.
She stays for extra help sometimes, but I don't think she finds it very helpful. Even the teachers have said that the afterschool help tends to be chaotic. We just started paying for a science tutor, which we are willing to do, but if dd isn't motivated I'm not convinced it's going to help all that much.
We've punished. We've grounded. We've taken electronic gadgets. We've listened. We've tried reasoning. We've tried getting her to take responsibility. There is no buy in on her part. I think she'd like to do better, but she's not willing to work hard and she's convinced she's just not smart. She's not taking drugs, she's not drinking.
We've been taking her to a therapist. At this age, you hear nothing at all from the therapist, but I suspect from what dd has said that she just uses the time to gripe about us, and that the therapist reinforces that it's just peachy to barely skate by.
Has anyone faced this before and had a positive outcome with your kid turning things around? What did you do? What helped?
I have a 15 yo, who has always been an excellent student in the past. This year, she is bombing math and science, and this is a kid who always wanted to go into the medical field. She says its too hard and she can't do it and if she spends her life at a low paying, menial job it's no big deal. I've seen no evidence of her putting in much effort this year at all. Her teachers have offered no insight. She goes to a big school and the guidance counselors are so busy dealing with the kids with horrible problems that this sort of thing gets no attention.
She stays for extra help sometimes, but I don't think she finds it very helpful. Even the teachers have said that the afterschool help tends to be chaotic. We just started paying for a science tutor, which we are willing to do, but if dd isn't motivated I'm not convinced it's going to help all that much.
We've punished. We've grounded. We've taken electronic gadgets. We've listened. We've tried reasoning. We've tried getting her to take responsibility. There is no buy in on her part. I think she'd like to do better, but she's not willing to work hard and she's convinced she's just not smart. She's not taking drugs, she's not drinking.
We've been taking her to a therapist. At this age, you hear nothing at all from the therapist, but I suspect from what dd has said that she just uses the time to gripe about us, and that the therapist reinforces that it's just peachy to barely skate by.
Has anyone faced this before and had a positive outcome with your kid turning things around? What did you do? What helped?